The place Catherine arrived at, following the maid, was the annex used as servants’ quarters. She entered the innermost part where sunlight barely reached, guided by the young girl.

“My lady, we could have met in the main building…”

The maid muttered in a small voice, apparently feeling she had brought Catherine to an unworthy place.

Her voice didn’t continue for long. Though lacking in sunlight, their destination wasn’t far from the entrance. The maid lightly knocked on the door.

“Sir.”

No immediate answer came.

“The lady of the house is here.”

Only after the maid’s additional words did they hear rustling sounds from inside.

After waiting briefly, the door opened with a creaking sound of hinges grinding together. The maid quickly stepped aside, allowing Catherine to see an elderly man who emerged.

“You’ve come.”

The man bowed stiffly with a gruff manner, then moved slightly away from the doorway. Catherine entered, trying not to look at his leg as he limped. She heard the maid following behind her.

“Please sit here.”

The only seating in the room was a single chair placed before an old table. Even this seemed to have been brought in merely for appearance’s sake. The man offered the chair to Catherine while he walked with his uncomfortable gait to sit on the bed.

“With this cursed leg of mine…”

“It’s quite all right.”

Catherine waved her hand dismissively at his belated apology. The man scratched the back of his neck with an awkward cough.

“I’ve nothing proper to offer you…”

Trailing off, the man showed a simplicity that contrasted with his initially gruff impression.

“That’s fine as well.”

Though Catherine told him not to worry, he rummaged through an old bag placed beside the bed. Unable to find anything suitable, he dropped his shoulders, unable to hide his disappointment. Setting the bag down again, he finally turned his attention to Catherine and asked:

“So… what business does such an esteemed person have with someone like me?”

“I hear you lived on the estate when you were younger.”

Catherine spoke without hesitation in response to his question. The man nodded unconsciously in affirmation. Encouraged by this reaction, Catherine met the gamekeeper’s dark eyes and asked:

“Could you tell me about my husband and his brother?”

“The young masters, you mean?”

The gamekeeper blinked with apparent bewilderment. The title that reflexively came from his lips sounded natural.

“Young masters,” he’d said. Catherine had never before met anyone at Cavendish who referred to Saul as “young master.” When Catherine first met Saul, he was already an earl.

This natural manner convinced Catherine that the man had indeed witnessed the brothers’ childhood at Cavendish Castle in his youth. When Catherine nodded affirmatively to his question, the man frowned as though troubled and asked:

“What sort of… stories?”

“Anything you remember.”

The man looked genuinely perplexed. Nonetheless, thinking he couldn’t dismiss the mistress’s command, he closed his eyes as though trying to recall something or perhaps considering where to begin. His shoulders tensed, and a low, pained sound escaped him. Catherine waited quietly for his thoughts to organize.

“When the two young masters were born, I was tending to the hunting dogs.”

The man apparently intended to start with stories from when they were born. His voice resonated softly as he groped through hazy memories.

Though more than twenty years had passed, his tone gradually became clearer as he traced his recollections, seemingly recalling past events more distinctly. A faint moisture glistened in his dark eyes as he delved into these long-ago memories.

“When the first young master was born, I remember it vividly even now. He took a full day to come out, and everyone waited anxiously through the night…”

We were terrified, thinking both the lady and the young master might be lost. Recalling this, the man clasped his hands together as though in prayer.

“It was a difficult birth, then?” Catherine quietly asked, and the man nodded.

Yes, it was. His head dropped as he answered. His voice continued with solemn quietness.

“Sadly, the lady did not survive…”

It seemed only Saul had survived the difficult birth. Catherine knew Saul had been in poor health since childhood, but this was the first she’d heard about losing his mother in childbirth. It wasn’t particularly strange.

For reasons unknown, Saul had rarely spoken to Catherine about his blood relations. Had David not appeared at the funeral, Catherine would still not have known that he had a brother.

“Still, it was fortunate that the first young master was born healthy.”

Healthy? This contradicted what Catherine knew. She blinked, unable to hide her surprise at this unexpected statement. The man, lost in his memories, didn’t seem to notice her reaction.

“I’ve heard my husband was in poor health from childhood…”

“The first young master, you mean?”

Surprisingly, the man looked bewildered, as though he didn’t understand what she was talking about.

“Though his health is poor now, he was quite robust as a child. He ran about frequently and loved climbing trees.”

Is that so? Catherine tilted her chin, lightly touching her lips with her fingertips.

“Continue,” she nodded slightly, adding nothing further despite her confusion, thinking perhaps she had misunderstood something.

“When the two young masters were running about, it was quite something. Among the dogs I tended, there was one particularly fierce animal…”

What followed were simple stories recalling the Cavendish brothers’ childhood. Tales of a hunting dog that particularly obeyed the brothers’ commands, their first time riding horses, or injuries from falling out of trees… Catherine listened quietly to the man’s continuing stories until he paused to catch his breath, then she spoke:

“The brothers seemed to get along very well.”

“You’d be hard-pressed to find siblings with such a close bond.”

The man looked pleased, as though receiving personal praise. He clearly had many fond memories from his time at the estate. For Catherine, who knew only the current versions of Saul and David, these stories were difficult to imagine.

“When did you leave the castle, then?”

At this question, the man made a counting gesture with his fingers, as though tallying years.

“Let’s see, when the first young master was about thirteen… so around fifteen years ago. The earl’s health was declining then, and he stopped enjoying hunting…”

The man hesitated as he continued, as though something troubling had occurred to him. “What is it?” Catherine asked, but he appeared too absorbed in his thoughts to hear her.

His eyes tensed as though contemplating something. After a long silence, he massaged his limping leg, then looked back at Catherine with apparent hesitation.

“Is something coming to mind?”

“Well… this is somewhat different, but… around that time, the dogs I was caring for began dying one by one.”

As he spoke, the man rubbed his chin with an expression suggesting he found this strange in retrospect. Then, as though just remembering, he continued:

“Come to think of it… the first young master’s collapse must have happened around that time too.”

Since the Saul that Catherine knew had always been frail and unhealthy, she blinked, not understanding why this seemed strange. For the man, however, it was clearly peculiar.

“I heard that after that collapse, his health remained poor.”

“Was there no specific illness he suffered from?”

“I remember there was quite a commotion when he couldn’t get up for several days… but I never heard about him contracting any particular disease.”

And he had never even suffered from minor ailments before that. Catherine frowned at this. Listening more carefully, it did seem odd. According to the gamekeeper, Saul hadn’t suffered from any particular illness before his collapse.

Rather, from what the man said, he had been healthy until then. Yet after suddenly collapsing, his health deteriorated… and the cause remained unknown, which was strange.

Perhaps the previous earl had concealed Saul’s illness at the time, keeping it from becoming known… Whatever the circumstances, it was certainly troubling that such a specific, sudden change in health occurred without any known cause.

Come to think of it, what was Saul’s illness? The thought suddenly struck her. And Catherine belatedly realized that she herself didn’t know the name of Saul’s disease.

When Catherine had once asked about Saul’s illness, he had been reluctant to discuss what he called his “chronic condition,” so she never received an answer. The same happened after Saul collapsed. When she asked Samuel about it, he too avoided giving a clear answer, always changing the subject, causing Catherine to forget about it.

“Tell me more about that incident.”

“It’s such an old memory…”

The man furrowed his brow intensely, seemingly trying to recall details from that time.

“Even the smallest detail would help. Can’t you remember anything?”

Catherine couldn’t hide her impatience, unconsciously pressing him.

For reasons she couldn’t explain, Catherine had a strange premonition that this might provide a crucial clue. Since the gamekeeper had left the castle after Saul’s collapse, she couldn’t be certain, but if some change had occurred in the brothers’ formerly close relationship, this incident might have been the turning point.